


Of Lies You Tell Yourself

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sexual Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1973601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And if the calloused hands in his dreams shift into tattooed arms or the deep low pants turned into harsh accented swears, if the scruff he pretends not to feel turns into a beard or the short locks he could bury his hands in turned into dark black curls, if the labcoat he’s peeling off a body turns into shirts that are just a bit too tight on the biceps, then he pretends not to notice as he tried to imagine it all as softer hands and longer ringlets and shimmied off skirts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Lies You Tell Yourself

Gavin’s first crush happens when he’s seven and the girl across the street buys him ice cream when he loses his money.

She’s fourteen and has long black hair that he’ll compare to the night sky for the next four years.   
He invites her to all his birthday parties, makes her teach him to roller blade when he’s eight, clings to her every summer and cries when he’s eleven and she leaves for college.

His second crush happens when he’s thirteen and Ms. Roth’s history class gets a T.A.

Mr. Lakes is young, blonde, and wears his button ups with the sleeves rolled up.

He tells a hundred different stories about how he got the scar by his right eye, chews fruity gum that makes Gavin sick when his lips are by his cheek as he explains a question and has a voice which makes the rough German words that slip from his mouth sound like sin.

When Gavin wakes up sticky from his first wet dreams, and the imagined memory of Mr. Lakes’ plump lips wrapped around his cock fresh in his mind, he stops asking questions and sits far from the stool in the back that Mr. Lakes sat on everyday.

* * *

Gavin managed to forget about it.

He gets into Red versus Blue, gets into film, takes a part-time job at a grocery store, and meets the boy who will become one of his closest friends.

He has a string of girlfriends (ranging from two week flings o a year long relationship Junior year), earns too many teddy bears at the fair, and loses his virginity to pink lips and long finger nails.

Somehow, he graduates high school convinced that he’s only jealous of Dan’s girlfriends because they were taking his friend away and that the rough, calloused hands that sometimes appear in his dreams belong to cheerleaders who had fallen too many times.

* * *

It’s not as though he gets hired and leaves his family as soon as he graduations, but eventually he gets his dream job (of course, he always knew on some level that he had one but it becomes more permanent) and moves to Texas.

He makes friends with people he never would have become friends with otherwise, has a million different projects that all make him smile even when he’s tempted to pull his hair out with frustration, and after a while he starts cramming into a room with five of the people he’s come to care about most in the world.

And if the calloused hands in his dreams shift into tattooed arms or the deep low pants turned into harsh accented swears, if the scruff he pretends not to feel turns into a beard or the short locks he could bury his hands in turned into dark black curls, if the labcoat he’s peeling off a body turns into shirts that are just a bit too tight on the biceps, then he pretends not to notice as he tried to imagine it all as softer hands and longer ringlets and shimmied off skirts.

* * *

Geoff and Jack get together first and it’s oh-so predictable.

Because Gavin watches them all the time. He sees the way Jack searches for comfort in Geoff’s smiles when they’ve taken a joke too far, sees the way Geoff searches for Jack first when they arrive for work, and the way the two of them don’t seem to need words to know what the other was thinking about.

Despite having seen it coming, Gavin’s heart ached the first time Geoff canceled their usual Saturday movie night or the first time Jack came into work in a high collared shirt that still couldn’t hide the hickeys marking his neck.

Michael and Ryan are the next and that one actually surprises Gavin.

For all he can see why it works, because no one makes Michael laugh like Ryan and his creepy jokes or because Gavin has seen the way Ryan watches Michael with eyes filled with want, he had always expected Ray and Michael to get together. He supposes that it must be because it’s hard to date someone who rarely wants to go out (and when the next time a girl asks him out, he invites her to watch movies at his place, he’ll tell himself it’s got nothing to do with imaging what kind of date Ray would like to go on).

Gavin tells himself suddenly needing more space for his project, and that that’s why he scoots his chair farther away from Michael not because it makes his throat dry to be so close to them when Ryan drops small kisses against Michael’s skin.

* * *

Things return to some kind of normality.

Jack moves in with Geoff and Gavin gets a girlfriend and starts spending more time with her or in his apartment then in the main house. Ryan and Michael start coming into work together more often and Gavin gets dumped after only two months for not paying her enough attention.

But the six of them continue having fun together, the five of them continue playing pranks on Gavin, Michael manages to get Ray to go out clubbing with him and Gavin once or twice, and Gavin stops dreaming of girls all together.

And then everything changes again. 

* * *

Gavin looked up from his computer when he heard the door swing open.

"Morning, Ray," he greeted. "You’re here early."

Ray rubbed at his eyes, half closed with sleep as he shuffled in, “Monty’s my ride today. He wanted to get here early to get started on stuff.”

Gavin laughed a bit, “That sucks. You aren’t going home until like two then.”

"I’m gonna try and catch a ride with Ryan and Michael so I can avoid that." Ray plopped down in his chair, glancing over at the empty desks on the other side of the room. "Where are they?"

Gavin shrugged, “At home sleeping I assume. I got Barbara to come around to get me. I haven’t finished Minecraft yet.”

"Ah…" Ray went silent as he started turning his equipment on. He spoke again after a long time, "Have you ever heard of polyamory, Gav?"

"I think there’s a Showtime series about it." Gavin hummed before guessing, "It’s like having more then one partner, right? Sister Wives without the marriage."

"You watch some really lame TV if your first thought was Sister Wives." Despite the jab, Ray nodded, "But yeah. That’s basically it."

"Why the sudden interest?"

Ray went quiet again before muttering, “Ryan and Michael asked me to go on a date with them.”

Distantly, Gavin can heard him saying something about knowing that he and Michael clicked but being worried about how he and Ryan would be together but most of his attention was focused on the way his chest felt like someone has just set a thousand pound weight on it. 

* * *

And that’s that.  
While Gavin is trying to figure out this feeling in his chest that makes his heart feel like its going to explode all over the walls, Ryan and Michael become Ryan and Michael and Ray.

And that’s when Gavin first lets himself realize that something isn’t exactly as he thought it was. There are no soft lips in his dreams that he can focus on as he dismisses everything else and no excuse that he only wanted a relationship like theirs because he had never thought of a relationship with three people because and now he wants them more then ever because there’s something like /hope/ there.

Gavin is trying to figure out if at some point in his life he became gay (because he most definitely liked girls, so why was it now all his dreams where of men?) when three becomes five.

And even though he’s finally figuring it out, it’s now that it seems to swallow him whole. Because now Geoff and Jack are involved, and there’s a saying that “three’s a crowd” so he can’t even begin to imagine what six is. 

* * *

"Hey, Gavin."

The man looked up as he walked into the office, a orange and purple slushie in one hand and his phone in the other, and stopped as he saw everyone. They were all grouped around Geoff’s desk, forming a small circle as though they had been talking about something important.

"Uh…" He glanced towards the door, "I can go find something to do if you guys need me too. I should probaly think Barbara for the ride, anyway."

"It’s fine," Geoff assured. "Get in here so we can get Minecraft filmed."

They pushed away from his desk, Ryan presenting Gavin’s chair with a flourish and a bow and Ray using the bookshelf to propell himself forward.

"How was lunch?" Michael questioned after a while.

Gavin shrugged, “Dunno. Haven’t gone yet.”

Michael glanced around at the others, and Gavin wondered why for a moment, before adding, “If you guys didn’t go to eat, where’d Barbara take you?”

"She has lunch plans with Blaine. We just went to the gas station. I wanted a slushie and she was out of those gummy bears she keeps in her desk."

"In that case," Jack drawled, "do you want to come to lunch with us? We’re just going for fast food because-"

"I’ve had a craving for Taco Bell lately," Ray interrupted, his face pulled in a wide smile as he glanced over at Gavin. "Nachos sound so good don’t they?"

Gavin’s stomach rumbled and he let out a soft laugh, “They do sound nice but…” He trailed off and glanced around, “Are you sure you want me to come? Wouldn’t you rather spend some time alone or something?”

"Gav," Ryan spoke softly, his voice serious but gentle, "we want to go with you. It’s not the same if it’s just us five, you know?"

Something snapped into place in his head and he realized that it wasn’t just lunch they were talking about. He swallowed hard, trying to force down the polite decline that formed instinctively on his tongue.

"You don’t have to if you don’t want to," Geoff piped up, his voice etched in concern. "We aren’t forcing you to do anything."

"No!" Gavin bit the words out more forcefully then he meant to. He saw Michael’s eyes shadow over with hurt and Ray’s lips twitched down before he got his expression under control again. He didn’t have the heart to look at the other side of the room to see how they had reacted. He rushed to fix his mistake„ "Not no I don’t want to go but no you aren’t forcing me into anything. I want to go." He took a deep breath, feeling for the first time in years like there wasn’t this thousand pound weighing down on him. "I really want to go."


End file.
